Learn more about budget reconciliation and explore our research and analysis of the latest budget reconciliation tax proposals. Our experts explain what budget reconciliation is, how it works, and the role that politics will play in it for the 119th Congress as well as President Trump‘s policy agenda. You can also launch our Reconciliation Tracker
President Trump has called for permanent extension of the 2017 tax cuts, additional policies including no taxes on tips, overtime pay, and Social Security benefits for retirees, and has also promised higher taxes on US imports through a series of new tariffs.
7 min read
As lawmakers work through the reconciliation process, permanently enacting improvements to deductions for capital investment and research and development (R&D) costs will create an economically powerful package.
7 min read
If lawmakers are serious about pro-growth policies and fiscal responsibility, they will need to put policies forward that achieve those goals. Simply adjusting the baseline doesn’t reduce actual deficits in the coming years.
7 min read
Fiscal pressures are likely to weigh heavily on lawmakers as they craft a tax reform package. That increased pressure could result in well-designed tax reform that prioritizes economic growth, simplicity, and stability, or it could encourage budget gimmicks and economically harmful offsets. Lawmakers should avoid the latter.
8 min read
What happens to your taxes when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expires on January 1, 2026? In this episode, we explore the potential tax hikes facing millions of Americans and the debate over measuring the budgetary impacts of extending tax cuts.
Rohit Kumar, principal and leader of PwC’s Washington National Tax Services Tax Policy Services group in Washington, D.C., joins Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge to discuss the congressional budget reconciliation process: what it is, how it works, and the role that politics will play in it for the 117th Congress as well as President Biden’s policy agenda.
A carbon tax would be a less economically harmful pay-for than either personal or corporate income tax hikes and a more efficient way to reduce carbon emissions than green energy tax credits, but would come with other trade-offs.
4 min read
As Congress considers President Biden’s proposal to tax unrealized capital gains at death, the history of previous efforts suggests it faces a perilous road ahead. Lawmakers must resolve tricky design and implementation details that derailed past attempts to change how capital gains are treated when assets are passed from one generation to the next.
4 min read
Under the House Ways and Means tax plan, the United States would tax corporate income at the third-highest integrated tax rate among rich nations, averaging 56.6 percent.
3 min read
Over the course of the last year, it has become clear that Democratic lawmakers want to change U.S. international tax rules. However, as proposals have surfaced in recent weeks, there are clear divides among various proposals.
5 min read
The White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA)’s recent report estimates the average federal individual income tax rate for the top 400 wealthiest households in the U.S to be 8.2 percent, lower than typically estimated for top earners.
4 min read
We discuss where the reconciliation package on Capitol Hill stands and talk through recent Tax Foundation modeling, which found that the plan may not have the economic boost its proponents have claimed.
The latest version of the Biden Build Back Better agenda, released last week by the House Ways and Means committee, is dense, with too many provisions to flesh out completely. Here’s a rundown of the good, the bad, and the ugly of it.
7 min read
The potential federal tax increase of over 1,600 percent on dipping tobacco as a result of the House Democrats’ proposal could result in state taxes and retail prices increasing by more than 50 percent in certain states.
4 min read
As Congress considers several tax proposals designed to raise taxes on high-income earners, it’s worth considering the distribution of the existing tax code.
3 min read
Under the House Democrats’ reconciliation plan, the top tax rate on pass-through business income would exceed 50 percent in most states. Pass-through businesses, such as sole proprietorships, S corporations, and partnerships, make up a majority of businesses and majority of private sector employment in the United States.
3 min read
Under the Ways and Means text, the U.S. would have an average corporate tax rate of 30.9 percent, which would be the third-highest corporate tax rate in the OECD, behind only Colombia and Portugal.
1 min read
Under the House Democrats’ tax plan, companies in 21 states and D.C. would face a higher corporate tax rate than in any country in the OECD.
1 min read
Reconciliation. One word that drives D.C. crazy, yet has been the way some of Congress’s most monumental bills have become law. We discuss why this complex budget process is back in the mix as Congress gears up to advance President Biden’s multi-trillion-dollar tax agenda.
Research shows that a tax on stock buybacks would not be the right policy solution to encourage long-term investment or lift wages.
3 min read
Rather than pursuing policies that have demonstrably reduced R&D and innovation elsewhere, and that would disincentivize R&D in the U.S., lawmakers should continue to ensure an ecosystem that encourages risk-taking and R&D.
4 min read
Lawmakers are considering policy changes within the reconciliation bill that would reduce private R&D within the pharmaceutical industry and reduce the number of new drugs coming to market. Instead of hampering medical progress, policymakers should work to ensure that the tax code remains conducive to R&D spending and the resulting innovation.
5 min read
Congressional lawmakers are putting together a reconciliation bill to enact much of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. Many lawmakers including Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR), however, want to make their own mark on the legislation.
5 min read
Mark-to-market is not simple to implement, as it involves new administrative and compliance challenges for taxpayers. Mark-to-market levies tax on phantom income, requiring some taxpayers to engage in some degree of liquidation, ultimately suppressing incentives to save and invest. The limited tax revenues that could result from these proposals are not worth the risk.
5 min read
While the excise tax penalty in H.R. 3 is referred to as a 95 percent tax rate, it actually amounts to a 1,900 percent tax rate because of how the proposal defines the tax base. In other words, under the H.R. 3 tax penalty, a drug that sells for $100 would incur a $1,900 tax.
3 min read
Temporary policy creates uncertainty for taxpayers and scheduling more expirations will add to the already-expiring provisions under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017.
3 min read